The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Today, professional as well as non-professional users in a variety of different fields, such as engineering, architecture, automotive design, graphic design, advertising, fashion design, medicine, etc., can develop three-dimensional (3D) models of buildings, vehicles, and other objects using 3D modeling software that operates on a computing device. A user typically interacts with 3D modeling software via input devices such as a keyboard, mouse, trackball, and/or stylus, and the drafting document is displayed on a graphical display device, such as a computer monitor or screen.
In general, 3D modeling software allows a user to draw various three-dimensional shapes (either directly and/or by defining two-dimensional (2D) faces that make up 3D shapes), apply colors and/or textures to the shapes, move, scale, rotate, and skew the shapes, etc. 3D software typically provides the user with stock shapes (e.g., 3D shapes such as spheres or parallelepipeds and/or 2D shapes such as arcs, circles, rectangles, and other known geometric shapes) and/or provides tools to create such shapes. Further, 3D modeling software typically allows users to save models as files that conform to a certain predefined format. To share models, users transmit to each other files with the corresponding model data, or upload the files to data servers.
Users usually develop 3D models by sequentially entering various drawing and image manipulation commands via a graphical user interface (GUI). For example, to model a two-story building, a user may first draw a four-wall structure, draw a door in one of the walls, then draw several windows in the walls, etc. The user may then paint or texture the walls, the roof, and other portions of the model. Accordingly, it may take a significant amount of time for a single user to develop a complex and detailed model.
Collaboratively developing a 3D model includes simultaneously (or essentially simultaneously) developing a same 3D model with input from multiple users at multiple computing devices during a same time interval. While collaboratively displaying and/or collaboratively developing a 3D model, in order to point out particular aspects to other users, a particular user typically refers to specific points of reference of the 3D model by describing the location using human language using a telephone, email, chat or other such mechanisms.